Palimpsests in Ethnic and Postcolonial Literature and Culture

This volume explores ways in which the literary trope of the palimpsest can be applied to ethnic and postcolonial literary and cultural studies. Based on contemporary theories of the palimpsest, the innovative chapters reveal hidden histories and uncover relationships across disciplines and seemingly unconnected texts. The contributors focus on diverse forms of the palimpsest: the incarceration of Native Americans in military forts and their response to the elimination of their cultures; mnemonic novels that rework the politics and poetics of the Black Atlantic; the urban palimpsests of Rio de Janeiro, Marseille, Johannesburg, and Los Angeles that reveal layers of humanity with disparities in origin, class, religion, and chronology; and the palimpsestic configurations of mythologies and religions that resist strict cultural distinctions and argue against cultural relativism.

Examines intertextuality in transnational literary and cultural examples Studies the relationship between the archive and the text to reexamine histories Seeks to use palimpsests to reconfigure the hierarchy of the dominant culture over the postcolonial

Autorentext

Yiorgos D. Kalogeras is Professor Emeritus, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece (2018). His most recent publication, coedited with Cathy C. Waegner, is Ethnic Resonances in Performance, Literature, and Identity (2020).

Johanna C. Kardux is Director of North American Studies at Leiden University, The Netherlands. Her publications include a book on The American Pilgrims in Leiden, 1609-1620 (4th ed. forthcoming in 2020).

Jopi Nyman is Professor of English and Vice Dean at the University of Eastern Finland. His recent books include Displacement, Memory, Travel in Contemporary Migrant Writing (2017) and Border Images, Border Narratives (2021; with Johan Schimanski).

Monika Mueller is Senior Lecturer at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. Her most recent publication, coedited with Bettina Hofmann, is Performing Ethnicity, Performing Gender: Transcultural Perspectives (2017).

Inhalt
Introduction, Yiorgos Kalogeras, Johanna C. Kardux, Monika Mueller, and Jopi Nyman.- I. Scraping off and Writing/ Painting over: Revisiting the Archive.- Silvia Schultermandl (University of Graz, Austria). **Palimpsestuous Historiographies in Lisa Lowe's The Intimacies of Four Continents and Karen Tei Yamashita's I-Hotel..- Izabella Penier (University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom), The Body as a Palimpsest: Stor(y)ing Memories in Michelle Cliff Clare Savage Novels and Gayl Jones's Corregidora..- Cathy Covell Waegner (University of Siegen, Germany), Cultural Palimpsests on the Ethnic Shore: Refunctionalizing Seaside Forts..- II. Contested and Interwoven Histories: The City as Palimpsest in Literature and Culture.-Page Laws (Norfolk State University, USA), Littoral/Literal Watermarks: Layers of Signification in Maritime Marseille..- Kudzai Ngara (University of the Free State, South Africa), Memory, History and Identity: Postcolonial Urban Palimpsests in the Writing of Ivan Vladislavi..- Sophia Emmanouilidou (Aristotle University Thessaloniki, Greece), Ominous Borders, Liminal Bridges: Narrative Palimpsests of Cultural History and Racial Subjectivity in Alejandro Morales' Epic Novel River of Angeles (2014)..- Gundo Rial y Costas (Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil), The Marvellous City of Rio de Janeiro and its Favela Other: A Contested Palimpsest..- III. Rethinking Cultural Structures and Literary Strategies.- Elisabeth Reichel (University of Basel, Switzerland), On the Poetry of a Boasian Cultural Anthropologist: Ruth Benedict's Palimpsestuous Writings..- Ewa A. Adamkiewicz (University of Graz, Austria), Tradition of Black Dissent: James Baldwin and Black Lives Matter..- Marta Werbanowska, (Howard University, USA), A Palimpsest of Herstories: Intertextuality as a Woman's Practice in Gloria Naylor's Linden Hills..- Aparajita Nanda (UC Berkeley, USA), APalimpsestuous Reading of Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood..